A Clockwork Heart

[ysabetwordsmith]

Here is an awesome new metaphor for being transgender.  It also works pretty well for being queer, transracial, species dysphoric, polyamorous, or other situations where your innate nature clashes with other people's major expectations so badly that it does damage.

Comments

[fayanora.livejournal.com]

Think outside the box.

I feel a better metaphor is another kind of box. You're inside a Windows PC but you're running Apple OS, or inside an Apple computer running a Windows OS, and people tell you to change the machine you're in, but you only have one computer, and even if you had another, the technology to swap hard drives does not yet exist. And maybe you like being an Apple in a PC or vice versa, who knows? Or maybe you dual boot Windows *and* Apple OS? Hell, maybe you triple boot Windows, Apple OS, and Linux, or you have one OS but you run virtual machines in other OSes. Maybe those virtual machines help you fake being the right OS, but anyone looking close enough could tell the difference. And then you get viruses for one OS and the IP guy won't help treat them because you're using the wrong OS, but you can't help what OS you are.

Yes...

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

I've heard the OS metaphor before, and really like it.

And some of us are, well, you know how geeks make regular programs and get bored and consume waaayyy too much caffeine and donuts and the next thing you know the toaster is dancing and singing "I'm an Oscar Meyer weiner!" We were coded like that, at 3 AM, and there is no user manual. So deal.

Also don't push the red button. It has a plastic cover taped over it for a reason.

Re: Yes...

[zeeth_kyrah]

I'd be willing to push the red button anyway, but then I'm also the sort to figure out what it does first.

Re: Yes...

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

That's the verbal tac nuke. It is a life-wrecking strike that can do collateral damage. Hence the safety cover, to be removed only on occasions when someone's behavior genuinely warrants that level of appropriate force. Of course, if someone pries it off, then the karma's on them.